When called on to explain his art, Ramkinkar Baij would say that he rode two horses — painting and sculpture. He forgot to mention a third horse, theatre, whose massive backdrops were Baij’s earliest canvases, and the passionate relationship he had with the stage as an actor, singer and director. Against the halo of his sculptures and paintings, the artist’s stage presence slipped into shadow. It is thus fitting that a forthcoming event explores Baij as a sculptor, painter, scenographer, singer and theatre artiste through physical performances ranging from acting to acrobatics. 409 Ramkinkars derives its title from 400 sculptures of Baij and the nine letters of his first name and will be held at IGNCA from March 24 to April 2.

409 Ramkinkars has been laid out as a promenade theatre piece in which audiences will walk among live action at the IGNCA lawns, Twin Art Galleries, amphitheater and Mati Ghar. People who have known Baij only through his art can now experience his life by visiting a representation of his studio, watching a play on him and interacting with the characters and events that shaped his era. Click here to read more…

]]>http://ekaresources.com/2015/03/24/5064/feed/0In Malik Ayaz’s Dreamshttp://ekaresources.com/2015/03/16/in-malik-ayazs-dreams/
http://ekaresources.com/2015/03/16/in-malik-ayazs-dreams/#commentsMon, 16 Mar 2015 11:10:59 +0000http://ekaresources.com/?p=5051A marvelous account of the early firangis who turned Indian is a salad of identities and a mirror of Indianness.

]]>For those studying the enormous cast of characters that populate Indian history of the 16th and 17th centuries, there are further reasons to worry. The field now threatens to implode, with a fascinating group of foreigners masquerading as Indians coming to light. The vicissitudes of their struggle to exist in India simultaneously as insiders and outsiders, as foreign and native, is the focus of Jonathan Gil Harris’s tour de force, the verbosely titled The First Firangis: Remarkable stories of heroes, healers, charlatans, courtes­ans & other foreigners who became Indian. click here to read more..

]]>The embattled Egyptian Museum says it has begun to log every act of conservation it makes, as it attempts to restore its reputation following the furore over Tutankhamun’s botched beard.

The museum’s newly appointed director of conservation, Dr Saied Abdel Hamid Hassan, said he has told his staff to document each change they make to artefacts, and hopes to publish the resulting record accessible online within a year. The decision follows a larger-scale plan to revive the museum in its entirety.

Speaking to the Guardian, Abdel Hamid argued he had a “completely different” attitude to conservation than his predecessor – who oversaw the notorious decision to fix the golden mask of Tutankhamun with the wrong glue – and promised to increase transparency of his department. Click here to read more.

]]>http://ekaresources.com/2015/03/08/egyptian-museum-to-launch-new-conservation-database/feed/0Barbican Centre in London puts artists’ personal collections on showhttp://ekaresources.com/2014/09/19/barbican-centre-in-london-puts-artists-personal-collections-on-show/
http://ekaresources.com/2014/09/19/barbican-centre-in-london-puts-artists-personal-collections-on-show/#commentsFri, 19 Sep 2014 08:13:42 +0000http://ekaresources.com/?p=5027Major exhibition in the UK of the personal collections of post-war and contemporary artists.

It will run at the Barbican Art Gallery from 12 February to 25 May 2015.

The exhibition looks at how artists throughout history have acquired collections for personal and artistic reasons.

Andy Warhol, for example, stopped by antique and junk shops daily to look for items. Many of the objects he collected served as source material for his famous silkscreen prints. Read more

]]>http://ekaresources.com/2014/09/19/barbican-centre-in-london-puts-artists-personal-collections-on-show/feed/0Deepshika Kalsihttp://ekaresources.com/2014/09/18/deepshika-kalsi/
http://ekaresources.com/2014/09/18/deepshika-kalsi/#commentsFri, 19 Sep 2014 06:16:46 +0000http://ekaresources.com/?p=5017Deepshikha Kalsi is a qualified materials conservator who has worked with institutional and individual clients for over a decade to tailor conservation solutions to their needs. Her engagements include several years with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) where she was involved with inspecting and documenting collections as well as planning and […]

]]>Deepshikha Kalsi is a qualified materials conservator who has worked with institutional and individual clients for over a decade to tailor conservation solutions to their needs. Her engagements include several years with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) where she was involved with inspecting and documenting collections as well as planning and implementing conservation procedures, and training programmes. This was followed by 7 years at the Times of India Group, where she established and headed the Art Conservation Department.

While her interest and experience encompass paintings, Deepshikha is a specialist textile conservator, who has focussed exclusively on them following her training from the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2011. Recent projects undertaken by her Textile Conservation Studio include conservation of garments and accessories from the private collection of the Maharajas of Jaipur on behalf of the Jaigarh Public Charitable Trust, garments from the collection of the Maharawals of Dungarpur on behalf the Maharana Manhar Kumari Museum, stabilisation of a rare Palampore chintz from the Tapi Collection that was displayed in Japan, and as a consultant with Eka for the special exhibition, “A Passionate Eye – Textiles, Paintings and sculptures from the Bharany Donation” at the National Museum, New Delhi.

]]>When India’s national museum showcases its journey, they cover the earth and the skies. In “A Passionate Eye”, an exhibition of textiles, sculptures and paintings from the Bharany collection, a phulkari shawl from the 19th century with exquisite embroidery of pink parrots, orange trees and white maidens, is displayed on the ceiling. While the shawl becomes a canopy, a mirror image in vinyl is placed as a carpet causing visitors to interact with it. This exhibition, which closes on the 10th of September 2014 currently on view at the National Museum, in Delhi offers an insight into design interventions.Read more

]]>http://ekaresources.com/2014/09/09/read-between-the-lines/feed/0Manjusha Museumhttp://ekaresources.com/2014/09/01/manjusha-museum/
http://ekaresources.com/2014/09/01/manjusha-museum/#commentsMon, 01 Sep 2014 09:40:54 +0000http://ekaresources.com/?p=4971Client: Manjusha Museum, Dharamasthala, Karnataka March 2014 – Ongoing Manjusha Museum is situated in the holy town of “Dharmasthala” in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka state, India. It houses a vast collection of rare objects, antiques, paintings, artifacts, temple chariots, vintage and classic cars. These were collected from temples across Karnataka. It is located to the south of the famous Lord Manjunatha temple. Our role […]

Karnataka

March 2014 – Ongoing

Manjusha Museum is situated in the holy town of “Dharmasthala” in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka state, India. It houses a vast collection of rare objects, antiques, paintings, artifacts, temple chariots, vintage and classic cars. These were collected from temples across Karnataka. It is located to the south of the famous Lord Manjunatha temple.

]]>Envisioned and realised by Martin da Costa, CEO of the Indian luxury events company Seventy EMG, the Skoda Prize for Indian Contemporary Art was born after close to ten years in incubation. Da Costa had attended the Turner Prize exhibition in 1999, featuring the contemporary artists shortlisted for that year’s award in London, and, drawn by the euphoria generated by the event that year—with nominee Tracey Emin’s exhibit My Bed rousing people awake—he’d begun to think about a similar initiative in India. “The Skoda Prize for Indian Contemporary Art was designed and developed as our deliberate attempt to create one of the world’s great art prizes,” da Costa said in his mission statement. “It is our ambition to have ‘The Skoda’ mentioned in the same breath as ‘The Turner’ one day.” At Rs 1 million, the Skoda Prize offered just under half of Turner’s top prize of GBP 25,000, which, given the relative age of the Indian contemporary art market, was a substantial figure. For Skoda Auto India, there was “nothing but goodwill and the joy of art” behind their sponsorship, as Thomas Kuehl, the company’s director of sales and marketing, said at the launch. After 10 years of existence in the Indian auto market, they wanted to give back to Indian society. Read more
]]>http://ekaresources.com/2014/08/28/name-dropping/feed/0The first world war and the colour of memoryhttp://ekaresources.com/2014/08/07/the-first-world-war-and-the-colour-of-memory/
http://ekaresources.com/2014/08/07/the-first-world-war-and-the-colour-of-memory/#commentsThu, 07 Aug 2014 08:06:05 +0000http://ekaresources.com/?p=4947Eurocentric views of the conflict ignore the millions of people from across the globe who fought on the same side.

]]>More than 4 million non-white men were recruited into the armies of Europe and the US. In a grotesque reversal of Joseph Conrad’s vision, thousands of Asians, Africans and Pacific Islanders were voyaging to the heart of whiteness and far beyond – to Mesopotamia, East Africa, Gallipoli, Persia and Palestine. Two million Africans served as soldiers or labourers; a further 1.3 million came from the British “white” dominions. The first shot in the war was fired in Togoland, and even after 11 November 1918 the war continued in East Africa.

Today, one of the main stumbling blocks to a truly global and non-Eurocentric archive of the war is that many of these 1 million Indians, or 140,000 Chinese, or 166,000 West Africans, did not leave behind diaries and memoirs. In India, Senegal or Vietnam there is nothing like the Imperial War Museum; when a returned soldier or village headman died, a whole library vanished. Read more

]]>http://ekaresources.com/2014/08/07/the-first-world-war-and-the-colour-of-memory/feed/0An Indian Sculptor With Monumental Ambitionhttp://ekaresources.com/2014/08/05/an-indian-sculptor-with-monumental-ambition/
http://ekaresources.com/2014/08/05/an-indian-sculptor-with-monumental-ambition/#commentsTue, 05 Aug 2014 10:52:53 +0000http://ekaresources.com/?p=4937Ram V. Sutar is a leading contender for the commission to produce the world’s largest statue.

]]>Ram V. Sutar, 89, has already created more than 200 distinct statues, many of them massive. Now, he is a leading contender for the commission to produce the world’s largest statue: a 597-foot-tall rendering — which would be nearly twice as high as the Statue of Liberty — of Sardar Patel, an independence leader who played a crucial role in uniting India’s fractious states.In July, India’s new government set aside $33 million toward this behemoth’s completion, which will require more than 2,500 tons of bronze alone. Read More
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